Georgian businessman linked to West Ham

MOSCOW, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Georgian businessman Badri Patarkatsishvili, an associate of exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, said on Monday that he knew a suitor for the English Premiership club West Ham United but he himself was not bidding.

Vedomosti business daily said Patarkatsishvili was planning
to start negotiations to purchase the club in a deal it said
could be worth £100 million ($190.4 million).

But Patarkatsishvili, contacted by telephone in London, told
Reuters: 'Reports about my plans to buy West Ham are not true.
I'm just close to people who are thinking about buying this
club. I know these people for a long time.'

'Even if I wished to buy it (West Ham), I would not be able
to as I own (Georgian soccer club) Dinamo (Tbilisi) and,
according to FIFA rules, this would be prohibited,' he added.

He declined to say who was seeking the West Ham purchase.
Asked if it was Berezovsky, he said: 'I can't tell you.'

West Ham United said on Friday it had received a takeover
bid which it said was at a very early stage of discussion.

Officials at the East London club were not available for
comment immediately on Monday.

Speculation of a possible takeover of West Ham comes amid
concern among some football authorities over wealthy foreign
investors buying into clubs across Europe which they fear could
distort the European competition and the transfer market.

Football finances have come under the spotlight with the
estimated £300 million lavished by Russian tycoon Roman
Abramovich on Chelsea since he bought the club in 2003.

The West Ham takeover speculation also follows the club's
surprise recent signing of Argentine World Cup duo Carlos Tevez
and Javier Mascherano.

Patarkatsishvili, when asked about the signings, said: 'West
Ham just rented them, they did not buy them.'

Patarkatsishvili has recently sold a leading business daily
Kommersant to Russian steel tycoon Alisher Usmanov in a deal
estimated by the Russian media at between $200 million and $300
million.

Kommersant was long controlled by Berezovsky, a prominent
critic of President Vladimir Putin, from his exile in London. He
sold it earlier this year to Patarkatsishvili.

Berezovsky was Russia's most prominent and controversial
businessman in the mid and late 1990s and a Kremlin insider
under Russia's first post-Soviet president, Boris Yeltsin.

He fell out with Putin soon after the president took office
and fled in 2000 to London where he lives under the protection
of political asylum. Russia seeks his extradition on criminal
charges.